A Flaw with "going back to nature"

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Human lifespan hadn't increased hugely but far more people are making it to the full span. The average life expectancy is affected by childhood mortality, msternal mortality and occupational mortality which have all improved.
Hunter gatherers used to have much better health than the farmers who superceded them.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Human lifespan hadn't increased hugely but far more people are making it to the full span. The average life expectancy is affected by childhood mortality, msternal mortality and occupational mortality which have all improved.
Hunter gatherers used to have much better health than the farmers who superceded them.
I was struck by that when I walked around the graveyard at Haworth Parsonage. There were lots of tombstones with multiple children's names on, and quite a few for people who had lived to 80+ years, but relatively few for middle-aged people. I looked it up afterwards - in 1850, life expectancy in the village was 25.8 years and 41.6% died by the age of 6! :eek: - sanitary report.
 

pawl

Legendary Member
We often hear it
"Humans weren't designed to sit"

"Humans weren't designed to eat processed food"

"Humans were designed to run , climb, hunt, go hungry (Fast) , Eat fruits and vegetables"

If you live like our ancestors - you won't be struck down by diseases or arthritis

The flaw in the argument seems to be that modern man (person !) - has a life expectancy far in excess of his ancestors .......discuss !

I’m in .Where.do you by Woad and The Observes Book of 🦖😱
 
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pawl

Legendary Member
1: No predators any more.
2: Medicine.

Next!
Predators
Volvo drivers
BMW drivers
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
I suspect arthritis was a common thing in times gone past. Poor diet, heavy work, exposure to the cold and chills, the wet, the further you go back the worse it may well have been.
Same with availability of food, particually for hunter gatherers in winter months.
If modern living is abusing your body doing things it hadn't evolved to do...I'll take it, rather that than the uncertainties of life in times gone by.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
We're perhaps using a few of the basic methods used by stone age man, but come on! Medical advances are constantly making man live longer, even from 100 years ago.
Biggest single advance has to be cleanliness. Clean water, clean surroundings.

We know which plants to eat, for their medicinal purposes, and their effects. Even making synthetic versions for when the plants(s) aren't available. One I had passed onto me was use fresh/clean cobwebs on cuts. It helped the blood clot, and prevented infection. The cobwebs contain what we now know as penicillin

I don't think the predators changed that much in only the last few thousand years, but humans certainly did. Humans got better at controlling, or killing, or making their predators extinct, (or nigh on extinct). That's what I mean by no predators and the effect on human mortality. There are still wolves around now, as there were 8000 years ago, we just learned to kill more effectively, domesticate, and isolate ourselves better to keep the others away.
Mans biggest predator is man. We've just made better ways of killing.

We move out of our country, largely industrialized, and into truly open country, we can come up against some "unnatural" natural predator's that we've not had to be bothered about for centuries.
 
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